More From the Maria Anjiras Story Part 2

Steve Kobak

Published
7:00 pm EST, Friday, December 11, 2009

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Other interesting facts:

Maria's bike was a blue English racer.

Initial tips in the early investigation: Maria was reportedly sighted in a red Opel sports car in the days after her disappearance. Police did not receive a license plate number or a description of the driver. Classmates told investigators that Maria was, at one point, involved with an older guy but Weisgerber noted that, to a freshman in high school, an “older guy: could be a senior. He said Maria was a bit “boy crazy” like all girls her age.

Weisgerber said all the cold case investigators “juggle about six cases at a time” in addition to their regular duties. He is a detective sergeant and that duty makes it difficult to dedicate an entire day to investigating Maria's case.

Weisgerber ran all possible combinations of Maria's social security number in a database and came up with no results that matched her description. He has recovered

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Maria's dental records from 1972 and is looking for the most current dental records available. He contacted Maria's former dentist, who has since moved to Florida and sold his practice. Weisgerber dug through thousands of old files in the dentist's files, which were stored in the basement of his former practice, but could not find a more current dental record. He is currently trying to find out whether Maria had visited other dentists in the area.

Police have received tips on the case from psychic detectives. None of these tips panned out.

The Charter Oaks weren't as organized as larger biker gangs like the Hell's Angels and the Outlaws, Weisgerber said. Charter Oaks members appeared in the b-movie “The Horror at Party Beach,” a cult classic horror film that was shot in Stamford.

An article that appeared in The Hour on May 1978 said that investigators received information that an orange car was seen in Maria's driveway and she was spotted in North Carolina. Those tips have never been substantiated.

Both of Maria's parents are buried at Riverside Cemetery in Norwalk. Constan died nearly two years to the date of his wife Elsie's death. He had struggled with leukemia, according to a May 1978 article in The Hour. Maria's siblings are both over a decade older than she would be if she were alive.

The new owners of the Anjiras 2 Midwood Road home told Weisgerber they'd heard dark rumors about Maria's disappearance from neighbors. The current occupants of the house did not return requests for interviews.

The Hour attempted to contact about 30 people from the Class of 2009 for this article. Most didn't remember Maria or had changed their phone number multiple times, making it difficult to reach them. Two people spoke with The Hour who knew Maria and both had grown apart from Maria by the time high school started.

Childhood friends Colleen O'Brien and Roxanne Britland both had some interesting input that did not make the final cut. O'Brien wonders why Maria's bike was left near St. Mary's Lane. Britland believes Maria “got caught up in a cult” and, if she is alive, she is among “some secluded group of people and she's disguised.” Brittland said she just hopes Maria is safe and in a place where she wants to be.

“Her name will just pop into my head and I'll think about her and just wonder,” O'Brien said.

“It was very bizarre,” Britland said of the disappearance. “Nothing like that happened around here.”

Contributors to Web forums dedicated to cold cases and missing persons have theorized about Maria's connection to various Jane Doe cases. These theories often overlook mismatched physical features, Weisgerber said.

Many Jane and John Does have been buried in unmarked graves at the medical examiner's cemetery in the state where they are found. Pennsylvania State Police thought a Jane Doe found in their jurisdiction matched Maria's description but the unidentified woman's eye color didn't match Maria's, Weisgerber said. If investigators had any further inkling that Maria was, in fact, the unidentified woman, authorities would have to excavate the unidentified woman's unmarked grave in the medical examiner's cemetery in Pennsylvania.

Phillips said there is a lack of communication between some departments who find John and Jane Does and out-of-state departments. Also, when Maria disappeared in 1976, there was no such thing as the Internet, nevermind a database of missing persons.

Outpost for Hope used to have a public database of “off the grid” missing persons. Phillips once had a case where a mother and father were searching for their son. The son contacted Outpost for Hope to say he was in Korea straightening out his life and he didn't want to be contacted. He saw his picture on the database while Googling his name and he was infuriated. The database has since been taken down.

“Usually, in the world of runaways, you're either running from something or you're running to something,” Phillips said.

Regarding the Anjiras case, Phillips said Maria ran away at an age where she could be easily manipulated and fall victim to sex trafficking.

Two spokesmen from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said Maria's family requested that the organization not divulge information about the case to the media.

Todd Matthews started the Doe Network out of an interest in identifying John and Jane Does. In its decade-and-a-half existence, it has grown from a basement operation to a nationwide force in finding missing persons and identifying John and Jane Does. He has since enlisted an army of volunteers and assisted law enforcement agencies statewide in identifying victims. He recently helped develop Namus, a tool that can be used by law enforcement and forensic experts to identify John and Jane Does, for the U.S. Department of Justice.